City prepares for second round of quantitative easing after sharpest slowdown in UK’s services sector in a decade The City was readying itself for a second dose of electronic money creation from the Bank of England after the sharpest slowdown in Britain’s services sector in a decade prompted a £49bn loss in the value of leading London shares. One leading analyst predicted that Threadneedle Street could reactivate its quantitative easing programme this week after the monthly report from purchasing managers flashed warning signs of a double-dip recession over the winter. News that activity in the services sector – which accounts for 75% of the economy – had dropped at its fastest rate since the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001 sent shares sharply lower. With anxiety mounting over the eurozone’s debt-ridden governments, the FTSE 100 Index closed almost 190 points lower at 5103. Shares across Europe fell more heavily in response to weak economic figures and concerns that the political weakness of Angela Merkel’s centre-right government will blunt attempts at solving the eurozone’s debt crisis. Wall Street was closed for Labour Day. Banks were the biggest losers in London as a further £49bn was wiped off the value of leading shares following a loss of £33bn last Friday. The part-nationalised RBS fell more than 12% after it was singled out by a broker as the most vulnerable British target of claims made by the US Federal Housing Finance Agency over the subprime mortgage scandal. Barclays and HSBC, which joined RBS on the list of 17 banks, fell 7% and 4% respectively. Lloyds Banking Group fell 7%. Michael Saunders, economist at Citi, said the services data would have an impact on the Bank’s nine-strong monetary policy committee. “With these figures and other signs of increased downside risks to growth, we now believe that the MPC is likely to restart QE, either at this week’s meeting or the October one,” he said. Howard Archer, UK economist at IHS Global Insight, agreed that more QE was on the way, but not yet. “The survey strongly reinforces belief that interest rates are staying down at 0.5% for a long time to come [but] we believe that further quantitative easing still seems unlikely as soon as this Thursday given still significant near-term inflation concerns.” Labour accused the chancellor,George Osborne, of being in denial about the state of the economy. “We urgently need a plan for jobs and growth to kickstart the economy and so help get the deficit down,” said Chris Leslie, shadow Treasury minister. “The government should start by temporarily cutting VAT and using the money raised from a tax on bank bonuses to build thousands of affordable homes and get people off the dole and into work.” Quantitative easing Economic policy Economics Interest rates Bank of England Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Raoul Moat told girlfriend ‘I’m going to go crazy’ in call that led to rampage
September 5, 2011 No Comment
Inquest also told that police received a later call from Moat saying he was hunting down officers and ‘not coming in alive’ A recording of a phone call from Raoul Moat was played to an inquest jury in which he warned his girlfriend that he was “going to go crazy” after she told him she wanted him out of her life. The call between Samantha Stobbart and the 37-year-old bouncer was made when Moat was in prison and police said it was a catalyst for his murderous rampage, Newcastle crown court heard, on the first day of the inquest. Within days of his release from Durham prison, Moat shot and injured 22-year-old Stobbart, the mother of his child, and killed her new boyfriend, 29-year-old Chris Brown. The jury also heard a later call from Moat to police in which he said he was hunting down officers and was “not coming in alive”. That call, to an emergency call handler, came after he had attacked Stobbart and Brown in Birtley, Tyne and Wear, in July 2010, and shortly before he shot unarmed Pc David Rathband, blinding him, as he sat in his police car. He claimed he had taken two hostages and would kill them and any police officer who approached him. Moat expressed remorse for injuring his girlfriend, but added that he had been “stitched up” by the police for a number of years. Moat had thought, incorrectly, that Brown was a police officer; it was what Stobbart had told him in an attempt to keep him away from her. He told the call handler: “Now, my girlfriend has been having an affair behind my back with one of your officers. This gentleman that I shot last night, the karate instructor … You bastards have been on to me, right, for years. You have hassled us, harassed us, you just won’t leave us alone. “I went straight six years ago when I met her and I have tried my best to have a normal life and you just won’t let up. You won’t leave us alone for five minutes. I can’t drive down the street without the blue lights flashing.” The call continued: “But the fact of the matter is I’m not coming in alive … You wanted me to kill myself but I’m going to give you a chance because I’m hunting for officers now, right?” The call handler said: “No. Please don’t do that. We don’t want any more killing, all right?” Moat hung up. The earlier recording was made in June 2010, while Moat was serving an 18-week prison sentence for assault. Police retrieved three recorded calls from the prison during their investigation. In one of the calls, Moat asked Stobbart: “What’s wrong?” She replied: “It’s over.” “Over what?” he asked her. “I’ve had enough,” she said. “Of what?” Moat said. “Everything.” Moat said: “We had one argument the other day. Let’s not get all silly about it.” He complained that “everybody is getting on my case” and that he was getting “picked on”. The conversation ended with the phone being slammed down. In the second call, Moat told Stobbart: “You are the only person I have ever cared about. I can’t have you out of my life. I’m going to go crazy, man.” She told him she had met a new man who was “a lot younger than you”. Superintendent Jim Napier, of Northumbria police, said: “It is clear from the evidence that Moat’s breakup with Samantha Stobbart was the catalyst for his murderous acts.” Moat – who became the subject of a huge manhunt – died following a six-hour stand-off with police marksmen. He shot himself in the head after the stand-off at Rothbury, Northumberland, during which police twice fired XREP Tasers that had not been approved by the Home Office. The 11 members of the jury sworn in at Newcastle crown court will decide whether the Taser rounds contributed to the former nightclub doorman’s death. The coroner, David Mitford, told jurors that an inquest was needed because, “Mr Moat met his death when he was effectively detained [in the siege with police]“. He added: “It will not have escaped your attention that there were some weapons called Tasers used on the night in question. Those Tasers were supplied to Northumbria Police by a firm called Pro-Tec Limited.” He urged the jurors to do “the impossible” and forget what they had already heard about the Moat case. “There will be questions about the weapons used, how police managed the incident, how officers dealt with the deceased and how he acted”, the jury was told. The jury was also read six letters in which Moat indicated he might take his own life. They were addressed to his former girlfriend, to social services, his business partner Karl Ness and other friends. The letters outlined the problems in his life and told his friends what to do with his belongings. Superintendent Napier said the letters found in a search indicated Moat was “suicidal or had been suicidal in the past” and the letters appeared to be prepared by Moat and intimated he intended to take his own life. Napier said officers also found a noose in the property near the loft hatch, he told the jury. Officers found fishing weights and material that suggested they could be converted to ammunition. ” Napier said: “Following the shooting of Pc Rathband and Moat’s declaration he was hunting for officers, this search developed on to a scale we have never really experienced in Northumbria police and I understand seldom experienced before in the UK.” Moat left a note with a friend that said: “I’m a killer and a maniac but I ain’t a coward. I’m not on the run, I will keep killing police until I am dead. They’ve hunted me for years, now it’s my turn.” The inquest, which is expected to last four weeks, continues. Raoul Moat Crime Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
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At least 30 Kurdish fighters have been killed and 40 injured in clashes near Sardasht, an Iranian official has claimed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have killed at least 30 Kurdish rebels in fighting near the Iraqi border, according to a military official. A senior Iranian military spokesman, Colonel Hamid Ahmadi, told state TV that another 40 members of the Iranian Kurdish group Pejak had been injured during fierce clashes outside the border city of Sardasht. Following the clash a Pejak spokesman inside Iraq declared an immediate, unilateral ceasefire. Shirzad Kamanger appealed for Iranian forces to stop shelling rebel bases and open talks over the Kurdish group’s demands for greater rights in Iran. But Ahmadi rejected the call, saying: “A ceasefire with a terrorist group doesn’t make any sense.” He told state TV: “We want them to leave the border region before any dialogue can be held.” The fighting comes a week after the Revolutionary Guards announced a new military offensive against Pejak, or the Free Life party of Kurdistan, with the intention of driving them from their positions in Iran. Iran has sporadically bombed Pejak bases deep inside Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region. Tehran maintains it has the right to take such action and has accused Iraqi Kurds of sheltering the group, which is battling over Kurdish areas of north-western Iran. Iran Kurds Iraq Middle East David Batty guardian.co.uk
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Clegg’s demands over NHS may spark Lords amendments – as Lib Dem grassroots say bill will hurt patients and party The Tories and Liberal Democrats are facing a fresh clash over the government’s NHS reforms after Nick Clegg encouraged his MPs to put “probing questions” to ministers when the bill returns to the Commons on Tuesday. In a two-hour meeting with his parliamentary party on Monday night, the deputy prime minister held out the possibility that he will accept amendments to the heath and social care bill when it moves to the House of Lords later this month. Clegg’s move means that Lady Williams could be backed by Liberal Democrat ministers if she attempts to amend the bill to guarantee that the health secretary has a legal duty to deliver a comprehensive health service free at the point of need. But a source at the Department of Health indicated last night that Andrew Lansley, the health secretary – who has already amended the bill after the government’s “listening exercise” – would not accept fresh amendments on this point. The source said: “Our view is that the legislation is watertight on the secretary of state’s obligation to ensure there is an NHS available to all. That was always our view. But we amended the legislation to reassure those who were not sure.” Clegg said earlier in the day that he accepted the view that there was no need for fresh amendments on this issue. In a speech on schools in south-west London, he said: “Let me be absolutely clear. There is nothing, nothing, nothing in any of the government’s plans which in anyway threaten the basic founding principles of the NHS…There is no question, legally or politically, of the secretary of state under these new arrangements being somehow able to wash his or her hands of the NHS.” But at Monday night’s meeting of the Lib Dem parliamentary party, Clegg admitted that ministers still had to work hard to clarify the bill for MPs and peers with concerns. Paul Burstow, the Lib Dem health minister, is to offer further briefings to MPs and peers who will also be invited to meet officials at the department of health. All sides accept that it is too late to table further amendments on the NHS reforms when the bill is debated by MPs at report stage on Tuesday and Wednesday and at third reading on Wednesday . But Lib Dem MPs have been encouraged to put “probing questions” to ministers for possible amendments that will be tabled in the House of Lords. One Lib Dem source said: “We hope that we will not need to amend the bill further. But we may have to.” Another Lib Dem source said: “There will be robust interventions in the debate.” Lib Dem whips believe that the overwhelming number of MPs will support the amended bill. But Andrew George, the Lib Dem MP for St Ives, said he would rebel. The battle within the Lib Dem ranks was exposed last night in leaked emails, in which grassroots members of the party vented their anger at the leadership. Jeremy Sanders of Huddersfield Liberal Democrats wrote in an email to John Pugh this week, the Lib Dem backbench health committee chairman, that “yes, we can try to get improvements to the details, but none of these changes are going to alter the basic fact that the legislation is based on the assumption that what the NHS needs is a system based on private sector involvement, free market competition and internal markets. “Quite honestly, if our MPs are willing to go along with this, what exactly won’t they be willing to support?” In the same batch of emails obtained by the Guardian, Robert Hutchison, a Lib Dem councillor in Winchester, tells Pugh that “in my view is that if Lib Dem MPs vote for the bill this week — without further major amendments — it will damage the NHS and damage the party”. Charles West, one of the key party activists on the NHS, has written to party members to back an appeal against the the Lb Dem’s conference committee decision not to debate the health bill at the forthcoming party conference. “I have therefore written a letter of appeal to the Federal Conference Committee against their narrow decision not to take the motion that I and over 100 conference reps submitted in June, and in case that appeal fails we are submitting an emergency motion which will achieve the same ends”. Last month Andrew George, the Lib Dem rebel on the health bill, emailed Lib Dem activists with a blunt message: “of course I’ll try to influence colleagues but some are still basking in the synthetic afterglow of the post-pause Bill revision, perhaps having duped themselves that it’s ‘job done’! People need to wake up to the fact that we can say what we like at Conference, but the MPs main chance to influence would already have passed!” Labour twisted the knife into the Lib Dems with the party’s health spokesman John Healey arguing that Nick Clegg’s claim that he had met 11 out of the 13 changes demanded by his party’s spring conference resolution was “wrojng”. “He’s failed on seven and sallen short on six”. Baroness Thornton, the party’s spokesperson in the Lords, warned that the lack of scrutiny in the Commons — where 1,000 amenments mean just 40s of parliamentary to consider each one — could see the bill be put into a specialist committee to examine whether there is enough time to debate the bill. Writing in the Guardian, Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, a former GP who had criticised the health bill, says now is the time to back the coalition’s plans as “the structural changes to the NHS have passed the point of no return”. She argues instead that the bill needs to be amended to ensure that the choice of who is appointed to sit on and run the new NHS National Commissioning Board, a quango with £60bn to spend, is fairly and openly discussed. NHS Health Public services policy Politics Liberal Democrats Conservatives Nick Clegg Liberal-Conservative coalition Nicholas Watt Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Clegg’s demands over NHS may spark Lords amendments – as Lib Dem grassroots say bill will hurt patients and party The Tories and Liberal Democrats are facing a fresh clash over the government’s NHS reforms after Nick Clegg encouraged his MPs to put “probing questions” to ministers when the bill returns to the Commons on Tuesday. In a two-hour meeting with his parliamentary party on Monday night, the deputy prime minister held out the possibility that he will accept amendments to the heath and social care bill when it moves to the House of Lords later this month. Clegg’s move means that Lady Williams could be backed by Liberal Democrat ministers if she attempts to amend the bill to guarantee that the health secretary has a legal duty to deliver a comprehensive health service free at the point of need. But a source at the Department of Health indicated last night that Andrew Lansley, the health secretary – who has already amended the bill after the government’s “listening exercise” – would not accept fresh amendments on this point. The source said: “Our view is that the legislation is watertight on the secretary of state’s obligation to ensure there is an NHS available to all. That was always our view. But we amended the legislation to reassure those who were not sure.” Clegg said earlier in the day that he accepted the view that there was no need for fresh amendments on this issue. In a speech on schools in south-west London, he said: “Let me be absolutely clear. There is nothing, nothing, nothing in any of the government’s plans which in anyway threaten the basic founding principles of the NHS…There is no question, legally or politically, of the secretary of state under these new arrangements being somehow able to wash his or her hands of the NHS.” But at Monday night’s meeting of the Lib Dem parliamentary party, Clegg admitted that ministers still had to work hard to clarify the bill for MPs and peers with concerns. Paul Burstow, the Lib Dem health minister, is to offer further briefings to MPs and peers who will also be invited to meet officials at the department of health. All sides accept that it is too late to table further amendments on the NHS reforms when the bill is debated by MPs at report stage on Tuesday and Wednesday and at third reading on Wednesday . But Lib Dem MPs have been encouraged to put “probing questions” to ministers for possible amendments that will be tabled in the House of Lords. One Lib Dem source said: “We hope that we will not need to amend the bill further. But we may have to.” Another Lib Dem source said: “There will be robust interventions in the debate.” Lib Dem whips believe that the overwhelming number of MPs will support the amended bill. But Andrew George, the Lib Dem MP for St Ives, said he would rebel. The battle within the Lib Dem ranks was exposed last night in leaked emails, in which grassroots members of the party vented their anger at the leadership. Jeremy Sanders of Huddersfield Liberal Democrats wrote in an email to John Pugh this week, the Lib Dem backbench health committee chairman, that “yes, we can try to get improvements to the details, but none of these changes are going to alter the basic fact that the legislation is based on the assumption that what the NHS needs is a system based on private sector involvement, free market competition and internal markets. “Quite honestly, if our MPs are willing to go along with this, what exactly won’t they be willing to support?” In the same batch of emails obtained by the Guardian, Robert Hutchison, a Lib Dem councillor in Winchester, tells Pugh that “in my view is that if Lib Dem MPs vote for the bill this week — without further major amendments — it will damage the NHS and damage the party”. Charles West, one of the key party activists on the NHS, has written to party members to back an appeal against the the Lb Dem’s conference committee decision not to debate the health bill at the forthcoming party conference. “I have therefore written a letter of appeal to the Federal Conference Committee against their narrow decision not to take the motion that I and over 100 conference reps submitted in June, and in case that appeal fails we are submitting an emergency motion which will achieve the same ends”. Last month Andrew George, the Lib Dem rebel on the health bill, emailed Lib Dem activists with a blunt message: “of course I’ll try to influence colleagues but some are still basking in the synthetic afterglow of the post-pause Bill revision, perhaps having duped themselves that it’s ‘job done’! People need to wake up to the fact that we can say what we like at Conference, but the MPs main chance to influence would already have passed!” Labour twisted the knife into the Lib Dems with the party’s health spokesman John Healey arguing that Nick Clegg’s claim that he had met 11 out of the 13 changes demanded by his party’s spring conference resolution was “wrojng”. “He’s failed on seven and sallen short on six”. Baroness Thornton, the party’s spokesperson in the Lords, warned that the lack of scrutiny in the Commons — where 1,000 amenments mean just 40s of parliamentary to consider each one — could see the bill be put into a specialist committee to examine whether there is enough time to debate the bill. Writing in the Guardian, Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, a former GP who had criticised the health bill, says now is the time to back the coalition’s plans as “the structural changes to the NHS have passed the point of no return”. She argues instead that the bill needs to be amended to ensure that the choice of who is appointed to sit on and run the new NHS National Commissioning Board, a quango with £60bn to spend, is fairly and openly discussed. NHS Health Public services policy Politics Liberal Democrats Conservatives Nick Clegg Liberal-Conservative coalition Nicholas Watt Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk
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Abdul Hakim Belhaj says MI6 helped CIA arrest him and send him to Libya for torture A Libyan rebel leader who was rendered to Tripoli with the assistance of MI6 said on Monday that he had told British intelligence officers he was being tortured but they did nothing to help him. In a claim that will increase the pressure for further disclosure about the UK’s role in torture and rendition since 9/11, Abdul Hakim Belhaj said a team of British interrogators used hand signals to indicate they understood what he was telling them. “I couldn’t believe they could let this go on,” he said. “What has happened deserves a full inquiry.” Belhaj was detained by the CIA in Thailand in 2004 following an MI6 tipoff, allegedly tortured, then flown to Tripoli, where he says he suffered years of abuse in one of Muammar Gaddafi’s prisons. It emerged on Monday that MI6 had been able to tell the CIA of his whereabouts after his associates informed British diplomats in Malaysia that he wished to claim asylum in the UK. Belhaj was then allowed to board a flight for London and abducted when the plane called at Bangkok. There were signs that the discovery of a cache of secret MI6 and CIA documents at an abandoned government office building in Tripoli was triggering panic in some parts of Whitehall. The papers detail the UK’s role not only in the rendition of Belhaj, but in that of a second man, known as Abu Munthir. This operation appears to have been planned by British and Libyan intelligence officers without any CIA involvement. David Cameron said the disclosures would be investigated by the Gibson inquiry, set up last year to examine the UK’s role in torture and rendition. It was unclear whether MI6 or MI5 had disclosed anything to the inquiry before the new documents came to light. Inquiry staff first indicated they knew nothing about the Libyan operations, and were seeking information from the government “as soon as possible”. Later they said they had “received material relating to these issues”, but declined to be more specific. Similarly, the Conservative MP Richard Ottaway, a former member of the intelligence and security committee, a Westminster body supposed to provide oversight of MI5 and MI6, indicated the committee knew nothing about the UK-Libya operations before giving the agencies a clean bill of health in a 2007 report on rendition; he then said he could say nothing about the matter. Belhaj on Monday revealed more details of the lead-up to his rendition on 6 March 2004, which he says came amid his attempts to reach the UK, of which the government had become aware. He said he had first tried to travel to London from Kuala Lumpur via Beijing in late February that year. However, he was refused permission to board in Beijing, despite carrying a French passport, which does not require a pre-issued UK visa. He was returned to Kuala Lumpur where he was detained by Malaysian immigration officials. It is understood that an associate of Belhaj then visited the British embassy in Kuala Lumpur advising officials there of his intention to seek political asylum in the UK. Shortly afterwards he was freed from the detention centre and allowed to buy a ticket to London via Bangkok. By then he had disposed of his French passport, issued to a Jamal Kaderi, and was travelling on a Moroccan passport, issued in the name of Abdul al-Nabi. Holders of Moroccan passports require a pre-issued visa to enter the UK, but Belhaj said he did not apply for a visa and was allowed to board without one – a highly unusual practice. The revelation raises fresh questions about the extent of the government’s role in Belhaj’s rendition. Documents discovered last Friday reveal that a senior MI6 officer, Mark Allen, had written to Libyan spy chief Moussa Koussa congratulating him on receiving Belhaj and acknowledging that “the intelligence was British”. “I would not board until they assured me that I could travel to the UK,” Belhaj said. “They did that and I got on the plane.” Belhaj was captured by CIA officers, in co-operation with Thai authorities, inside Bangkok airport. He says he was tortured at a site in the airport grounds and then sent to Libya, where Gaddafi had long seen him as one of the biggest threats to his tyrannical four-decade rule. “The British were the second team to visit me,” he said. “They came about a month after I was returned to Libya and they were very well briefed about LIFG [Libyan Islamic Fighting Group] members in the UK. They knew everything, even their code names. They wanted to know more details about the LIFG and also about the general environment elsewhere, al-Qaida, that sort of thing. There was a woman who was leading the team, a big man and a third person who was translating. They only came one time.” Belhaj said intelligence officers from other European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, also travelled to Tripoli to speak to him inside the infamous Abu Selim prison in the south of the capital. Before each visit he was told by Libyan officers – and sometimes by Koussa – to “tell the British and others that the people they are asking about are al-Qaida”. “The Libyans told me that if I told them that I would be treated better.” He said Koussa, who fled the Gaddafi regime in March with MI6 help, would often taunt him in prison, with threats that he would die there. On one occasion Koussa ordered guards to put a shade over half of Belhaj’s cell window, to reduce what little sunlight he was getting. Files seen by the Guardian on Sunday inside the now ransacked offices of the external security service reveal that Libyan spies remained in close co-operation with the CIA and MI6 as late as November last year. The files reveal the Americans, in particular, were regularly requesting information about the identities of Libyan cellphone users. One document showed that the CIA had responded to a Libyan request about the user of a satellite phone by giving GPS references for every call made. CIA rendition MI6 Libya Torture Middle East Africa Arab and Middle East unrest CIA Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Abdul Hakim Belhaj says MI6 helped CIA arrest him and send him to Libya for torture A Libyan rebel leader who was rendered to Tripoli with the assistance of MI6 said on Monday that he had told British intelligence officers he was being tortured but they did nothing to help him. In a claim that will increase the pressure for further disclosure about the UK’s role in torture and rendition since 9/11, Abdul Hakim Belhaj said a team of British interrogators used hand signals to indicate they understood what he was telling them. “I couldn’t believe they could let this go on,” he said. “What has happened deserves a full inquiry.” Belhaj was detained by the CIA in Thailand in 2004 following an MI6 tipoff, allegedly tortured, then flown to Tripoli, where he says he suffered years of abuse in one of Muammar Gaddafi’s prisons. It emerged on Monday that MI6 had been able to tell the CIA of his whereabouts after his associates informed British diplomats in Malaysia that he wished to claim asylum in the UK. Belhaj was then allowed to board a flight for London and abducted when the plane called at Bangkok. There were signs that the discovery of a cache of secret MI6 and CIA documents at an abandoned government office building in Tripoli was triggering panic in some parts of Whitehall. The papers detail the UK’s role not only in the rendition of Belhaj, but in that of a second man, known as Abu Munthir. This operation appears to have been planned by British and Libyan intelligence officers without any CIA involvement. David Cameron said the disclosures would be investigated by the Gibson inquiry, set up last year to examine the UK’s role in torture and rendition. It was unclear whether MI6 or MI5 had disclosed anything to the inquiry before the new documents came to light. Inquiry staff first indicated they knew nothing about the Libyan operations, and were seeking information from the government “as soon as possible”. Later they said they had “received material relating to these issues”, but declined to be more specific. Similarly, the Conservative MP Richard Ottaway, a former member of the intelligence and security committee, a Westminster body supposed to provide oversight of MI5 and MI6, indicated the committee knew nothing about the UK-Libya operations before giving the agencies a clean bill of health in a 2007 report on rendition; he then said he could say nothing about the matter. Belhaj on Monday revealed more details of the lead-up to his rendition on 6 March 2004, which he says came amid his attempts to reach the UK, of which the government had become aware. He said he had first tried to travel to London from Kuala Lumpur via Beijing in late February that year. However, he was refused permission to board in Beijing, despite carrying a French passport, which does not require a pre-issued UK visa. He was returned to Kuala Lumpur where he was detained by Malaysian immigration officials. It is understood that an associate of Belhaj then visited the British embassy in Kuala Lumpur advising officials there of his intention to seek political asylum in the UK. Shortly afterwards he was freed from the detention centre and allowed to buy a ticket to London via Bangkok. By then he had disposed of his French passport, issued to a Jamal Kaderi, and was travelling on a Moroccan passport, issued in the name of Abdul al-Nabi. Holders of Moroccan passports require a pre-issued visa to enter the UK, but Belhaj said he did not apply for a visa and was allowed to board without one – a highly unusual practice. The revelation raises fresh questions about the extent of the government’s role in Belhaj’s rendition. Documents discovered last Friday reveal that a senior MI6 officer, Mark Allen, had written to Libyan spy chief Moussa Koussa congratulating him on receiving Belhaj and acknowledging that “the intelligence was British”. “I would not board until they assured me that I could travel to the UK,” Belhaj said. “They did that and I got on the plane.” Belhaj was captured by CIA officers, in co-operation with Thai authorities, inside Bangkok airport. He says he was tortured at a site in the airport grounds and then sent to Libya, where Gaddafi had long seen him as one of the biggest threats to his tyrannical four-decade rule. “The British were the second team to visit me,” he said. “They came about a month after I was returned to Libya and they were very well briefed about LIFG [Libyan Islamic Fighting Group] members in the UK. They knew everything, even their code names. They wanted to know more details about the LIFG and also about the general environment elsewhere, al-Qaida, that sort of thing. There was a woman who was leading the team, a big man and a third person who was translating. They only came one time.” Belhaj said intelligence officers from other European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, also travelled to Tripoli to speak to him inside the infamous Abu Selim prison in the south of the capital. Before each visit he was told by Libyan officers – and sometimes by Koussa – to “tell the British and others that the people they are asking about are al-Qaida”. “The Libyans told me that if I told them that I would be treated better.” He said Koussa, who fled the Gaddafi regime in March with MI6 help, would often taunt him in prison, with threats that he would die there. On one occasion Koussa ordered guards to put a shade over half of Belhaj’s cell window, to reduce what little sunlight he was getting. Files seen by the Guardian on Sunday inside the now ransacked offices of the external security service reveal that Libyan spies remained in close co-operation with the CIA and MI6 as late as November last year. The files reveal the Americans, in particular, were regularly requesting information about the identities of Libyan cellphone users. One document showed that the CIA had responded to a Libyan request about the user of a satellite phone by giving GPS references for every call made. CIA rendition MI6 Libya Torture Middle East Africa Arab and Middle East unrest CIA Martin Chulov guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …The history of Labor Day (you know, why we celebrate): Labor Secretary Hilda Solis hits all the right talking points in her Labor Day message — jobs, unions are awesome, investment in education and training, protecting unemployment benefits and collective bargaining — but one is left wondering how much the rhetoric is backed up with bold action and significant funding: And, on the lighter side, David Letterman’s Top 10 Obama Labor Day Plans (pay particular attention to No. 2):
Continue reading …The history of Labor Day (you know, why we celebrate): Labor Secretary Hilda Solis hits all the right talking points in her Labor Day message — jobs, unions are awesome, investment in education and training, protecting unemployment benefits and collective bargaining — but one is left wondering how much the rhetoric is backed up with bold action and significant funding: And, on the lighter side, David Letterman’s Top 10 Obama Labor Day Plans (pay particular attention to No. 2):
Continue reading …
On Thursday's Morning Edition, NPR's touted the Obama administration's “more aggressive legal approach” towards pro-life demonstrators with the stepped-up prosecution of alleged violations of the controversial FACE Act. Correspondent Carrie Johnson highlighted the prosecution of an elderly pro-lifer, and let an abortion lobbyist denigrate pro-lifers as possible terrorists. Host Steve Inskeep introduced Johnson's report with slanted language about how “the fight over abortion rights continues in courtrooms and state houses all over this country. But a smaller-scale version of that conflict is on display almost every day between protesters and escorts at abortion clinics. And some of those tensions are on the rise, as the Obama administration takes a more aggressive legal approach against people who block access to clinics.” The correspondent then introduced Dick Retta, a pro-lifer who is a regular presence outside a Planned Parenthood office in Washington, DC, just blocks from the White House. Johnson noted that Retta had “a civil lawsuit…filed against him in July [by the Justice Department]. Authorities claim Retta violated a law called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE. The law is supposed to protect women and their doctors, by letting the government set up buffer zones against people who block patients from entering clinics. The clinic in D.C. says Retta blocked a patient this year, following her for 35 feet and standing in front of the door.” I should disclose that I personally know Mr. Retta. I met him several years ago as part of the regular 40 Days for Life campaign, and I sometimes see him at my church. While the NPR correspondent noted that he carries ” rosary beads and a packet of brochures filled with information about pregnancy and fetuses ” and that he ” has seven children and 11 grandkids ,” they didn't reveal that he is 79-years-old. The Obama DOJ has seen fit to pursue a senior citizen for supposedly being “among the most vocal and aggressive anti-abortion protestors [sic] outside of the Clinic,” as the civil complaint alleges . One might recall that the same Justice Department dismissed a case against he New Black Panther Party for their violent antics outside a Philadelphia voting precinct in 2008. As the National Review's Hans A. von Spakovsky put it recently, “Somehow the behavior and speech of a 79-year-old sidewalk counselor violates federal law against intimidation, but the speech and behavior of the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia in 2008 was just fine, according to the skewed perspective of the liberals who inhabit the Civil Rights Division these days.” After playing sound bites from a Planned Parenthood director and the leader of a pro-life group, Johnson cited how ” the National Abortion Federation, which tracks violent incidents , says major violence is down since the murder, two years ago, of abortion doctor George Tiller….But Sharon Levin of the Abortion Federation says there are still some signs of trouble- two incidents this summer involving Molotov cocktails, and the arrest in Wisconsin of a man who told police he wanted to shoot abortion doctors. Levin attributes the relatively low level of violence to the Justice Department's more aggressive enforcement .” She then played a clip from Levin, who smeared all pro-lifers as potential violent offenders: SHARON LEVIN, NATIONAL ABORTION FEDERATION: One of the dangers we have seen is that the people who commit the major violent acts often started with minor violent acts, and they were never arrested. And so, their activities escalated. What the NPR correspondent didn't mention is that the National Abortion Federation not only apparently “tracks violent incidents,” but also serves as the ” professional association of abortion providers in North America ,” as their own website states , and their members perform half of all the abortions on the continent. Though they helped the NAF hype apparent violence against abortion clinics, the media outlet completely ignored covering on-ar the 2009 murder of Jim Pouillon, who was targeted for holding a pro-life sign outside a school . It should be pointed out that the National Abortion Federation made their feelings about the NPR report quite clear on their Facebook page : ” Listen to a great segment on NPR's Morning Edition featuring NAF Vice President and General Counsel Sharon Levin about the U.S. Justice Department's enforcement of the FACE Act against abortion clinic protesters .” This isn't the first time this year that Johnson has carried the water for liberal interests. Back in March 2011 , she highlighted critiques of the Obama White House from the left on their promise to be “the most transparent administration in history,” but downplayed questions over the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Unit's use of non-disclosure agreements with companies under investigation. The transcript of Carrie Johnson's report from Thursday's Morning Edition: STEVE INSKEEP: The fight over abortion rights continues in courtrooms and state houses all over this country. But a smaller-scale version of that conflict is on display almost every day between protesters and escorts at abortion clinics. And some of those tensions are on the rise, as the Obama administration takes a more aggressive legal approach against people who block access to clinics. NPR's Carrie Johnson has the story. CARRIE JOHNSON: A few blocks from the White House, outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington, D.C., Dick Retta has reported for duty in a blue windbreaker, khaki pants belted high, and brown shoes with thick soles. He's carrying rosary beads and a packet of brochures filled with information about pregnancy and fetuses. DICK RETTA: Please don't let them take your child's life. You don't have to. We can and will help you, please. Don't let them take your child's life. Let us help you. (audio of door shutting) JOHNSON: That was the clinic's front door, shutting right in Retta's face. But he says he's not deterred by that, or by a civil lawsuit the Justice Department filed against him in July. Authorities claim Retta violated a law called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE. The law is supposed to protect women and their doctors, by letting the government set up buffer zones against people who block patients from entering clinics. The clinic in D.C. says Retta blocked a patient this year, following her for 35 feet and standing in front of the door. Retta disagrees. RETTA: We don't block women from coming in. That's not our policy. I teach it. I teach what I'm doing. I teach that, and I say one thing: never block the women from going in- never. JOHNSON: Retta, who has seven children and 11 grandkids, says he's moved by his Catholic faith to do what he calls sidewalk counseling. The Justice Department civil lawsuit against him is one of eight authorities have filed since the start of the Obama administration, a big increase over the George W. Bush years, when only one case was filed. Ellen Gertzog is director of security for Planned Parenthood. ELLEN GERTZOG, PLANNED PARENTHOOD: There's been a substantial difference between this administration and the one immediately prior. From where we sit, there's currently much greater willingness to carefully assess incidents as they occur, and to proceed with legal action when appropriate. TROY NEWMAN, OPERATION RESCUE: This is a ridiculous overstepping of the federal government's bounds and- with the intent of restricting our freedom, our liberties, and our speech. JOHNSON: That's Troy Newman. He leads Operation Rescue, a group that protests at abortion clinics across the country. He describes the Justice Department's approach to the FACE Act this way. NEWMAN: It's really a political tool to shut them up, shut them down, and make them go away. JOHNSON: The National Abortion Federation, which tracks violent incidents, says major violence is down since the murder, two years ago, of abortion doctor George Tiller. The man who killed Tiller has been convicted. A federal grand jury is investigating his alleged accomplices. But Sharon Levin of the Abortion Federation says there are still some signs of trouble- two incidents this summer involving Molotov cocktails, and the arrest in Wisconsin of a man who told police he wanted to shoot abortion doctors. Levin attributes the relatively low level of violence to the Justice Department's more aggressive enforcement. SHARON LEVIN, NATIONAL ABORTION FEDERATION: One of the dangers we have seen is that the people who commit the major violent acts often started with minor violent acts, and they were never arrested. And so, their activities escalated. JOHNSON: Back at the Planned Parenthood in Washington D.C., what's escalating is the tension between Dick Retta and volunteer escorts who help women enter the clinic. RETTA: I get pushed. UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: Well, you're putting yourself- RETTA: And you're not allowed- UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: You're putting yourself next to the patients. RETTA: She pushed me. You know that? (unidentified woman 1 laughs) UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: You're not supposed to be pushing either. JOHNSON: Troy Newman of Operation Rescue says he relies on a simple rule, to tell if he's crossing a line. NEWMAN: My rights and your rights end at where our nose begins, okay?
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